World-renowned mountaineer Vern Tejas touched down in Hurleyville to share his expertise of climbing Alaska’s Denali, North America’s highest peak, and to offer insight into the Denali adventures of Hortonville native Frederick A. Cook (1856-1940). Hosted by the Frederick Cook Society at the Sullivan County Museum on Thursday March 13, Tejas’ talk was a deep dive into Denali, a mountain that he has climbed 60 times. 

Frederick Cook was a Brooklyn physician and explorer who claimed to reach Denali’s summit (20,310 feet) in 1906, but his ascent was contested by skeptics because he brought back no conclusive evidence. Tejas, who is also known for bringing his guitar on his climbs, offered his own perspective on whether Cook’s claims of summiting Denali were credible. Though the mountain’s name was officially reverted to Mount McKinley in January 2025, the Koyukon people who inhabit the area have called it Denali, meaning “The High One,” for centuries. 

In 1994, Tejas and world-renowned climber Scott Fischer were invited by the Frederick Cook Society to establish whether or not there was a route coming out of the Ruth Amphitheatre, where Cook claims to have begun his eight-day summit trip. Tejas and Fischer were short on funding and time but they were able to climb up to a ridge that they believe would have been Cook’s route to the summit. Tejas said “the route seems viable, so it’s possible that Cook made it to Denali’s summit, but not probable.” 

He left it up to the audience to form their own conclusions, but reiterated that climbing Denali is very difficult, takes a lot of work, and also a lot of luck to successfully reach the summit. Tejas also mentioned that climbing routes can degrade with time through natural weathering processes and that Cook’s route, which today includes a very steep section known as the East Buttress, may have been easier to climb in 1906.

“Scott [Fischer] and I had decided we’d come back and climb it ourselves in period climbing clothes with alpenstocks (long wooden poles with an iron spike tip) and cotton and wool, but unfortunately, Scott died in 1996 on Everest,” during a now famous climbing tragedy outlined in John Krakauer’s bestselling book “Into Thin Air.”

“I’d love to go climb [Cook’s] route someday,” Tejas said.

Caution on Cook’s  climbing credibility

Cook’s critics say his eight-day summit of Denali was impossible because most climbers equipped with modern gear take three weeks to summit Denali. Another reason cited for doubting Cook’s claims is the technical and logistical difficulty of climbing Denali, which is infamous for harsh weather and has only been summited by about half the people that attempt the climb.

Tejas was hesitant to join Cook’s naysayers; “Cook was an amazing guy- a top explorer of his time who was the first to circumnavigate (hike around the base of) Denali and also made trips to the Arctic Circle and Antarctica.” 

Tejas said it’s easy for a modern audience to underestimate “how tough the old guys were”- they didn’t climb by the same rules climbers use today, and Tejas maintained that Cook and his climbing partners were excellent climbers and would have been in great physical shape. John B. Johnston, a Livingston Manor resident and accomplished high-altitude climber who summited Denali in 1977, was in attendance and, at Tejas’s request, held up an older style ice axe to show the audience a tool that Cook and his team would have used to chop steps into the ice. 

An uphill battle

Tejas broke mountain climbing down into two types: expedition climbing and alpine climbing. Expedition climbing on Denali is logistically much more involved because it requires carrying three-and-a-half weeks worth of food, fuel, and supplies; this type takes longer but is much more reliable. The other type is alpine climbing (popular in the Alps), which is a much faster approach used by climbers when they “run up, tag the top, and run down” a mountain, carrying as little as possible. 

On one of his alpine climbs, Tejas was able to summit Denali in 15 hours, and he reiterated that motivated and physically fit people can make incredible achievements; in 1906 Cook was trying to raise funds to explore the North and South Poles, so this could have motivated a very difficult but, in Tejas’ estimation, doable ascent of Denali. 

Learning about Vern

Vernon “Vern” Tejas grew up in Texas and, as an accomplished swimmer, has always been in good shape. His lifelong journey began when he ran away from home as a teenager and hitched a ride to Boulder, Colorado. At age 19, Tejas found himself in Alaska with a passion to climb Denali. On his second day in Alaska, Tejas almost died of hypothermia, but after spending 5 years training with local climbers and the Alaskan Mountain Rescue Group, Tejas completed his first ascent of Denali when he was 25. 

Tejas, who plays guitar, fiddle, and harmonica, is always traveling and loves to play music. With fellow climber Marty Raney, he made a CD whose cover shows the pair playing fiddle and guitar on Denali’s summit. After a Martin Guitars sales representative saw Tejas’ album cover in an Alaskan music shop, the company decided to sponsor Tejas and sent him a “Baby Martin” guitar to bring with him on a Mount Everest climb to prove that their new miniature guitar was indestructible. 

On one fateful day as he was descending the summit of Mount Everest (29,032 feet), he got hit with rocks falling from above. 

“As the rocks were zooming by me, one of them hit my guitar…and at that point, I said ‘the guitar just saved my life, I should spend the rest of my life thanking it; so I carry it with me almost everywhere I go.’”